The Devious, 'Shakespearean' Way Israeli Soldiers Get Confessions From Suspected Militants

Palestinian prisoners sit blindfolded on the ground
after they were captured by Israeli soldiers.Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Ala'a Miqbel, a husband and father, spent a month in an Israeli
prison under interrogation for suspected ties to radical
Palestinian organizations.

Israeli
intelligence officers eventually freed Miqbel (with no charges)
but not before they tried to trick him into confessing with "a
cross between Big Brother and Shakespeare," as Emily Harris
reported for
NPR.

Officers at
the prison placed Miqbel with "the sparrows," as they call
themselves in Arabic — actors of-sorts who treated Miqbel as one
of their own.

But in
reality, the other inmates worked for Israel as
informants.

"I couldn't
believe it," he says. "I was in normal prison. The guys welcomed
me, they brought me new clothes, I took a shower. They gave me
coffee and a pack of cigarettes. When it was time we prayed
together," Miqbel told NPR.

To gain
admission, they told Miqbel, he had to openly talk about his past
— and only to the pretend Palestinian prison leader, Abu
Bahar.

Miqbel's talks
with Bahar often focused on militant activity, his reputation,
and how he ended up in jail. "Didn't you do any activity
against Israel in the 2008 war?" Bahar asked him.

Thankful for
all the good treatment, Miqbel spilled all his
secrets.

But before he
even met "the sparrows," Israeli intelligence strip-searched him,
blindfolded him, hand-cuffed him to a chair, and kept him alone
in a cell. They even planted another prisoner to tell Miqbel he
had passed interrogation and would head to a regular prison
soon.

Although he
fell for Israeli tactics, Miqbel maintained he didn't know
anything about launch rockets or Islamic Jihad. And he found out
Israeli intelligence had fooled him days later when officials
repeated every detail back to him.

"The prisoner
is absolutely helpless, and he thinks that the interrogation is
over. He can't guess or know that this is [part] of the whole
interrogation process," Israeli human rights and
criminal defense lawyer Smadar Ben-Natan told NPR.

Israeli
officers just consider the technique a form of "good cop, bad
cop," NPR reports. And the information would hold up in trial,
according to lawyers. Although having prisoners sign confessions
themselves works much better.

In the end, Israeli security sources couldn't confirm
anything Miqbel said happened. They say officials released him
after his interrogation.